We had an interesting day at Merrist Wood JAS Qualifier today. With Lion King (Leo) already qualified in both the BE90 and BE100, he was just here to get some match practice before the final.

Pauldary's Bobby's Girl (Tiny) had qualified for the BE90 final at the Hand, so in theory we had a nice relaxed day with the pressure on for Tiny's BE100 round.

I think it's fair to say I relaxed just a little bit too much! Leo jumped a lovely clear but a navigational error from the pilot resulted in him being eliminated. Still, at this stage this was not a disaster as he had jumped 14 fences clear in a lovely rhythm and learnt a lot. But things didn't get a lot better. Tiny was quite fresh and argumentative and had a bit of a messy round, knocking the gate and scoring 10 for style. With Leo then having the first down in the BE100, I was starting to get really angry with my apparent lack of focus and really had to shake myself up before Tiny's BE100 round.

Somehow I managed it and a smooth warm up was followed by a round which just felt faultless, double clear and 2 time faults. She went when I needed her to go, came back when I needed her back and just stayed so smooth in the canter and steady in the contact it was lovely. I was delighted to see that she had scored 0 (100%) for style!!

Paul, who is the event secretary throughout the JAS series congratulated me for scoring 0 but also said he thought it was ridiculous that someone had also scored 0 for style having had 4 faults. I promptly agreed with him - surely to knock a pole down the horses technique should not score 100%, nor, to an extent could the rider's approach have been perfect. I skimmed down the scoreboard just to see out of interest what Leo had scored in what had felt an ok round, and discovered that I was the person who had scored 0 with 4 faults! Whooops. Although I do still maintain my argument, I was pretty pleased with the score!

Tiny led the class of 63 entries right up until the end, but was pipped at the post by Georgie Wood who went on to win the final, who also scored 0 for style but got no time faults and ended up 3rd. I was obviously disappointed not to win having led for so long but was so pleased with Tiny's performance; she's not yet ready to push for time and hopefully next year she will be a force to be reckoned with at JAS competitions!

So, 5yo's Leo and Tiny are going to the final in 2 classes each, Cosmo is going for the BE100 after finishing 3rd at the Hand, and Acco is going after winning the Novice at the Hand. Acco and Cosmo are off to Hartpury tomorrow for the big boys classes with the hope of gaining more qualifications.